Phila. Officer Shot to Death

A Philadelphia police officer was shot and killed with a military-style assault rifle late yesterday morning when he confronted a band of robbers who had held up a Bank of America branch at a ShopRite in Port Richmond.

"Tell my wife I'll miss her," Schiller Street residents heard dying Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski say as they went to his side.

Other officers, catching up again with the robbers' stolen getaway car moments later, shot and killed one of the suspects.

Hundreds of officers were still searching darkened streets early today for one, two or even more of the robbers. Late last night, police combed parks and fields in the area, often using dogs and helicopters. For a time they believed they had cornered a suspect in Tacony Creek Park near the intersection of Tampa Street and Wyoming Avenue, but no arrest was made there.

Authorities also had several people in custody and were questioning them about the robbery and killing.

"This is a tragedy for the entire city of Philadelphia," Mayor Nutter said at Temple University Hospital, where the fallen officer was taken.

Liczbinski, 39, of Northeast Philadelphia, was a 12-year police veteran assigned to the 24th District in Port Richmond. He only recently had been promoted to sergeant, and would have turned 40 on Tuesday.

His wife, Michelle, and their children - Matt, Steven and Amber - were escorted into the hospital by police officials.

In the Port Richmond area, Nancy Braun, 43, a homemaker and mother of two, heard the gunfire that killed the officer.

She said she had heard several shots, then a neighbor's screams. She ran out of her door in her socks and saw Liczbinski lying beside his patrol car near Schiller and Almond Streets.

A man, she said, was cradling Liczbinski in his arms while trying, with no success, to stop the blood gushing from his abdomen. Blood was also pouring from one of Liczbinski's elbows, she said.

As other neighbors gathered around, Braun said, the stricken officer looked up and around before uttering the words for his wife.

He then gurgled, she said. Blood leaked from his mouth. His face became ashen.

Another officer and a man from the neighborhood lifted Liczbinski into a patrol car and took him to the nearest medical facility, Northeastern Hospital of Philadelphia. He was taken to Temple University Hospital, on North Broad Street, later.

While all that went on, the robbers crashed their Jeep - reported carjacked a day earlier - a couple of blocks away.